"It represents capitalism. It represents freedom. It represents everything America isabout. And to bring those two buildings down would bring America to its knees."

- Line from Nosebleed, a movie originally set to start beingfilmed at the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001

A significant number of movies and television dramas were being produced at the time of the 9/11 attacks, which had storylines with some remarkable similarities to the events of September 11, 2001. These storylines featured incidents such as terrorist attacks at the World Trade Center, terrorists hijacking a commercial aircraft, and terrorists causing a jumbo jet to crash in New York.

The movies and TV shows would have featured some famous actors, and were being made for major companies, such as CBS and 20th Century Fox. Furthermore, employees of the military and other U.S. government agencies are known to have assisted in developing the storylines of some of these productions. Unsurprisingly, after September 11, the movies and TV shows were either canceled or significantly rewritten so as to remove any resemblance to the 9/11 attacks.

The existence of these movies and TV dramas, at the very least, disproves claims that the 9/11 attacks could not have been foreseen. It is worth considering, however, whether these productions served a more sinister purpose in relation to 9/11, albeit unknown to most of the people working on them.

Check out this curious incident relating to the 9/11 attacks. According to a new entry in the Complete 9/11 Timeline, at around 9 p.m. on the evening before 9/11--less than 12 hours before the attacks began--the U.S. military lowered its "Infocon" threat level to the lowest possible level, supposedly because of "reduced fears of attacks on computer networks."

The Infocon system is intended as "a structured, coordinated approach to defend against and react to attacks on Defense Department systems and networks." General Ralph Eberhart, the commander of NORAD, was responsible for issuing Infocons to the US military, and so he was presumably responsible for lowering the Infocon level on September 10. (See my previous blog entry for details of Eberhart's suspicious actions on the day of 9/11 itself.)

The Infocon level was raised again after the second plane hit the World Trade Center on 9/11.

It's been eight years since the United States invaded Afghanistan. After all these years many Americans have lost sight of the alleged purpose of our invasion - to hunt for Osamabin Laden and al Qaeda.

What has also been lost is any government inquiry whatsoever into the accuracy of the "smoking gun" evidence that the Bush Administration presented as the final justification for invading Afghanistan - the peculiar "Osama bin Laden confession video".

Released on December 13, 2001, the videotape of bin Laden and associates taking pleasure in the 9/11 attack was seen around the world - over and over again. I remember the 24 hour news channels playing the same scenes practically non-stop while the talking heads told their audiences that this was absolute proof that the United States invasion of Afghanistan a few months earlier on October 7, 2001 was the right action.

October 24, 2008 -- The next president is likely to face a major international crisis within his first nine months in office, according to a senior group of business advisers to the defense secretary.

Accordingly, the Defense Business Board says the new administration should set a goal to win Senate confirmation of key Pentagon posts in the first 30 days of the inauguration, in order to have a full team in place to deal with such a contingency.

Michael Bayer, chairman of the Defense Business Board and veteran Pentagon consultant, this week called for the next administration to move quickly to avoid encountering civilian leadership vacuums that often accompany political transitions.

“Prepare for a likely first 270 days crisis,” Bayer warns in an Oct. 23 briefing. “Too many presidents were ill prepared for this.”

It's the fourth anniversary of the start of the Iraq War. It also feels like the anniversary of the end of our national focus on bringing the architect of 9/11 to justice.

Just a quick tour of the numbers, to help us get our bearings.

According to the Pentagon, there are about 27,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan — the highest number since the October 2001 invasion. They are part of a NATO-led force of around 50,000. According to the Department of Defense, there have been 369 American service personnel killed in Afghanistan, as well as 676 who were wounded and unable to return to action.

In Iraq, there are upwards of 142,000 U.S. troops. The Associated Press puts the current number killed at 3,217. Those wounded and unable to go back: 10,685, according to the DOD.